


Searching in the Snow

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Dadquisition [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cole (Dragon Age) Talks A Lot, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Gen, Helpful Cole, Helpful Cole (Dragon Age), Memories, Past Character Death, Temple of Sacred Ashes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6606511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chargers head to Haven and the Temple of Sacred Ashes, accompanied by the Inquisitor's daughter, whose idea it all was, and by Cole, who helps identify the bodies... in his own way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Searching in the Snow

'Hey Master Aclassi! Wait up, will you!'  
  
Krem pauses and turns halfway around, blinking away the first soft snowflakes that have begun to float before his eyes. He has been marching at the tail of their little column, making sure that none if the Chargers strays off the path, such as it is; but the girl, who strode cheerily somewhere in the middle at the beginning of their trek, has by now dragged even further behind than him. It takes a couple of seconds for her to emerge from the blue-grey mist, waving her hand urgently at Krem - supposedly as a signal for him not to take off again without her.  
  
As far as he can gather, the Inquisitor's teenage daughter, who got dragged along with him into this whole Breach crap, is half-elven. She certainly does not have horns like her father or Krem's own chief, but she is still about just as big as your regular old Qunari... Except that for her, the size is none of the brawn, all of the... pillowiness. From the looks of it, dear papa has not really been training her to follow in his footsteps; the chief even joked with him about it once, to which the Inquisitor replied that he tries now and again, but 'this is not where her heart lies'.   
  
Anyway, the point is, the kid is definitely not used to long expeditions like this; and with all this snow stuff, too, deep and hard-crusted and closing in round your feet like a bloody bear trap, so that every step require extra effort. By the time she finally catches up to Krem, her greyish face is flushed with a wave of flaring crimson, and each of her breaths turns into a long, hissing wheeze, like when someone splashes water over a bunch of burning coals. If she was a member of the company, Krem would have probably yelled her ear off for dawdling; but she seems like a decent kid, and has not complained so far - plus, this whole... addition to the Haven clean-up was her idea, and, crazy as it seemed at first, it's a pretty good one.  
  
'There you are,' he says genially, when the girl ploughs her way through the snow close enough to be within earshot. 'Wouldn't want some straggling demon or weird glowy Templar to off you while we weren't looking!'  
  
She let's out a half-strangled laugh.  
  
'I'd... kick them in the soft bits!'  
  
The mercenary smirks.  
  
'That's the spirit! We're almost there, anyway... Least, I think so. Your dad sure buried this place well when he faced down that darkspawn thing. But our guide seems to know where to head, right?'  
  
'Right,' the girl nods, seeming to catch her breath at last. 'He knows things'.  
  
Just at that moment, a long, loud call rolls like a wave towards them from the head of the column.  
  
'Oiii Kreeeeeem! We found it! The Temple is right down there!'  
  
'That would be Rocky,' Krem remarks, as he cocks his head slightly to the side to listen. Come on!'  
  
After another round of kneading the dense mass of snow, they join the others, who have found their footing on the remnants of a stone wall, which looks like a rime-touched hedge alongside separating two boundless fields of white. The 'guide that knows things', this odd lanky lad with a pancake hat and a habit of popping out of thin air, is already sliding all across the snowy expanse, the upper crust not as much as crackling under his weight. His face has an odd, dreamy look spreading across it like the glow of a sunrise (hey, this is actually pretty good; maybe Maryden will... like it?); and as he goes about, he mutters ceaselessly under his breath.  
  
'Armpits pinching, cloth cutting into the flesh like a fine dagger's edge. Maybe I should start fasting like I did when I was a regular Cleric... Took me ages to find a robe that fits; this had better be worth it. Fingers dancing over a sword's hilt, like the impatient beak of a woodpecker that taps at the tree bark. Stomach clenching slightly; restless thoughts swelling at the back of the head, hot and hasty, barely held back by the calming cool of the metal helmet. All those blasted rebels in one place - what if they start turning into abominations? Why is the Most Holy even bothering to treat them like they can see reason? The scar has almost healed, but it is still there; I can see it if I close my eyes - a dash of greyish purple marking the place where the blade struck, lightning-fast, in and out before the scream could even build up in my chest. And now, the man who did this is probably here, and we are to look each other in the eye like nothing happened... So many thoughts, so many voices, humming, merging, flowing; an endless river of questions, outcries, pleas, and whispers... Then, a ripple, sudden, powerful, spreading in a single heartbeat. Bright green light, eating through their eyes like a boiling potion - and then, pure, cold, silent blackness. Gone. They are all gone'.  
  
'Looks like we found the spot,' Krem mutters, with a small cough.   
  
The pancake hat, for all his seemingly harmless, ragdoll-like look, gives him this... uncanny feeling. And he is not sure if it is a good sort of uncanny or a bad sort of uncanny, either. He vaguely remembers finding a mirror and grinning happily at his reflection, and there is this thought stuck in his head that it happened some time after a talk with this guy... spirit... thingy... But he cannot for the life of him recollect the, well, actual details of that talk. Still, the fella is sure good at finding things hidden from view. It was rather... inspired of the girl to think of bringing him along in search of the bodies in Haven and at the Temple.  
  
Back in the buried village, he flitted about among snowdrifts, like a shadow woven out of the cold white flurry itself, pointing out who was lying where and reciting their last thoughts, just like he is doing now - in a long, rhythmic litany that made you kinda tearful when you made sense of it. Creepy, but useful. Many of the corpses they found were charred by dragon fire beyond recognition; and without the pancake hat seeing into their final moments, they would not have been able to determine which families to send the remains to.   
  
Now, as per the girl's suggestion, they are about to go through the same scheme here, at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The bodies here are older, reduced to sooty bones by the blast at the Conclave and then swept under a blanket of snow - but this hasn't stopped the fella from sensing them. Like the girl said, he knows things.  
  
Taking his place among his fellow mercenaries atop the wall, Krem spreads his shoulders, clears his throat, and begins to give out directions,  
  
'All right Chargers, you know the drill! Skinner, Dalish - you are the most light-footed; your job is to jump down and follow... er...'  
  
'Cole,' the girl cuts in helpfully. 'His name is Cole'.  
  
'Right!' Krem nods. 'Follow Cole and mark the spots he points out to you. Rocky, Grim - you dig out the bodies and load them into the cart...'  
  
'Can we use explosives?' the dwarf asks, his eyes lighting up. 'Cause, you know, all this snow and ice...'  
  
Krem rolls up his eyes in mock exasperation.   
  
'No, Rocky, we talked about this - no explosives! You don't wanna damage these poor sods any further! Annnd finally, Stitches - you make notes based on what... Cole says, so that Mistresses Leliana and Josephine back at Skyhold can work out who these guys used to be. That's it - now, get moving! We've got a lot of ground to cover!'  
  
After the Chargers receive their instructions and start climbing off the wall to where Cole is waiting, Krem turns towards the girl and says,  
  
'So, uh... You wanna watch this?'  
  
'I watched in the village,' she replies, in a very defensive tone. 'I am not squeamish, you know!'  
  
Krem chuckles slightly at her ruffled look - but then his expression grows serious.  
  
'Yes, sure - but what I was trying to say was... From what I gather, some of these... people down there... They could be from your dad's merc company. I mean, I have been through some weird stuff, first with the chief, and now with the Inquisition... But I would still probably lose it if I saw the Chargers lying around all burned to a crisp'.  
  
The girl looks up at him; he does not know how she manages to do that, since, despite her young age, she is almost a head taller than him - but she does. She looks up at him, and says softly,  
  
'Wow... That's really thoughtful... Thank you, Master Aclassi!'  
  
'You can call me Krem if you like,' the mercenary says, giving her a friendly grin. 'Now, you can stay up here while I go and see that no-one is slacking off - just take care of yourself, all right?'  
  
'Sure,' she nods; and with that, Krem clambers down into the embrace of the snow, while she is left to observe the busy scurrying of the Chargers back and forth across the field, and to occasionally snicker at the jokes they exchange to lighten up the sombre task at hand.  
  
She watches the salvage works for a little while before a familiar face materializes suddenly over her shoulder. But a moment before, Cole was down in the field, among the Chargers, pointing at the ground and muttering something, with his ragged clothes flapping about in the wind in a way that made him look like a tall, forlorn flagpole. But now, in a flash, he has moved to the girl's side, weaving himself into a powerful gust of icy wind.  
  
'I found him,' he says under his breath, staring at her unblinkingly with his transparent blue eyes. 'Do you want to see?'  
  
The girl makes a few huffing breaths, clenching and unclenching her fists.  
  
'Yeah,' she says at length, with a resolute head toss. 'I told Master A... Krem I wasn't squeamish. Take me to him'.  
  
Cole glides back off the wall, light as a feather; the girl tumbles after him, sinking knee-deep into the snow and flapping her arms in the air as the landing knocks her slightly off-balance.  
  
'Your name means Soul...' Cole muses, watching the girl wriggle in the snow's tight white clutches and attempt to straighten herself up. 'But you are very solid'.  
  
'I'd be offended...' she pants, finally regaining control over her limbs and making a few strained, dragging steps forward. 'But I know you don't mean it that way'.  
  
Cole's face lights up.  
  
'You understand,' he says, in a gleeful, singsong tone. 'You understand the way I talk!'  
  
'Sorta,' she smiles. 'I remember you telling Da he was solid, too... And you said it was good, because solid things stand firm when there is a storm blowing'.  
  
Cole nods enthusiastically.  
  
'I am glad I did not make him forget! And that you did not forget what he did not forget!'  
  
And thus, occupied by a friendly (if sometimes cryptic) conversation, they begin to move forward, to the spot in the snow that Cole has discovered. Time and again, the girl stumbles and groans in exasperation, her feet getting stuck among rows and rows of glittering white pillows; Cole looks on, head cocked to the side - wondering, perhaps, why solid people can get so clumsy. At some point, it suddenly occurs to him to stretch out his hand, which the girl gladly grabs for support as she yanks herself out of a snow drift. Cole beams and her and says excitedly, 'I helped!'; and she chortles in reply, milky vapour escaping her lips.  
  
At long last, they arrive: Cole stops and crouches in the snow, brushing his fingers gently along the upper powdery layer, as though caressing the face of an old friend that has fallen sick.  
  
'He is down there,' he whispers, his expression wistful and pensive. 'Cut sharp by shards of shattering heat, now resting under the soothing, soft covers. He thought of her before he died... Fleeting memories from twenty years ago, brushing against his mind in soft touches of butterfly wings. A smile quivering in the corners of his mouth, like a dew drop on the edge of a leaf. She might be here, with the Divine; I wonder if she will remember me...'  
  
'She does remember him, doesn't she?' the girl says, squatting down next to Cole. 'You saw his name in her mind, and she grew so unsettled...'  
  
'We will help her now!' Cole declares, with the utmost confidence, plunging his hand into the snow, as if about to start digging. 'She we look at him, and I will tell her what he thought, and she will move on!'  
  
'She might try to hit you, first,' the girl smirks.  
  
'It's okay,' Cole replies to her. 'I can make her forget where I was standing!'  
  
'Still feels pretty weird...' the girl ponders to herself, watching the tiny crystals of snow begin to melt at her touch. 'Hey Cassandra, I think you are amazing, so when Cole sensed you miss your dead ex-lover from twenty years ago, I decided to dig him up and send his burned corpse to you! Yaaay friendship!'  
  
She accompanies the last exclamation with a weak flapping of her arms; then, heaves a deep sigh and says,  
  
'All right. Let's get to it. We have a Seeker to help'.


End file.
